Photography at the 2010 Armory, Part 6 of 6

This is the final part of our exhausting multi-part Armory review post. Hopefully, all of the details will be of use to collectors who want to follow up with specific galleries, or who just need a summary of the photography that was being shown. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 can be found here (part 1), here (part 2), here (part 3), here (part 4) and here (part 5). This post refers to the booths at Pier 92.

Galerie Daniel Templon (here): James Casebere (2)

Locks Gallery (here): Eileen Neff (2)

Alan Cristea Gallery (here): Jan Dibbets (9), Boo Ritson (1). Having recently seen the Dibbets show at Gladstone, I was happy to run across this grid of Dibbets' color studies; they are bigger and bolder than I had imagined. The set is priced at $18500.

Wetterling Gallery (here): Doug & Mike Starn (8), Nathalia Edenmont (5). The Starn works are various views of a dense thicket of bamboo poles.

Springer & Winckler Galerie (here): Arnold Odermatt (8), Andy Goldsworthy (3), Bernd and Hilla Becher (15 as one typology), Sigmar Polke (3), Gerhard Richter (6 overpainted photographs), Bernhard Johannes Blume (2 diptychs), John Baldessari (1)

Galerie Michael Schultz (here): Gilbert & George (1)

Bruce Silverstein Gallery (here): Shinichi Maruyama (1), Randy West (16), Yao Lu (1), Martin Denker (1), Michael Wolf (4), Todd Hido (3), Maria Antoinetta Mameli (1), Ryan Weideman (9), Diane Arbus (1), Leonard Freed (3), Nathan Lyons (3), Rosalind Solomon (1), André Kertész (4 black and white, 3 Polaroids), Aaron Siskind (4 broken windows, 4 paint studies), Barbara Morgan (3), E.O. Hoppé (5), Alfred Stieglitz (1), Marvin Newman (2 color, 12 black and white, including a grid of manhole covers), Frank Paulin (4), Larry Silver (4), Walker Evans (2), and others. The Silverstein booth was a tribute to 100 years of photography in New York (1910 to 2010), with time periods marked out in paint underneath each section. I was surprised to see the two large Kertész prints (at right), as they were larger than any prints of his from Washington Square that I had ever seen. They were priced at $25000 and $20000 respectively. Silverstein also had two early Walker Evans architectural/railroad studies (from the late 1920s) which would fit well into our collection.

Faría Fábregas Galería (here): Marta Minujin (1)

Winter Works on Paper (here): Lee Friedlander (2), Weegee (4), Josef Sudek (1), Arthur Tress (1), Ralph Eugene Meatyard (2), James Casebere (1), Andre Villers (1), among many, many others, hung salon style.

Contessa Gallery (here): David Drebin (4), Chuck Close (2), Robert Rauschenberg (1)

Sicardi Gallery (here): Geraldo de Barros (8). These conceptual prints by de Barros were a discovery for me. The negatives were made in the late 1940s/early 1950s, and are full of gridded geometries and overlapping patterns. The prints are recent posthumous prints, made in editions of 15, priced between $8000 and $12000.

Gana Art (here): Jang Taewon (1 lightbox), Cindy Sherman (1 film still)

Mixografia (here): John Baldessari (1 set of 6 prints)

HackelBury Fine Art (here): Garry Fabian Miller (7), Pascal Kern (6), Doug & Mike Starn (1 triptych and 1)

Barry Friedman, Ltd. (here): Michael Eastman (5 interiors, 2 abstractions), Man Ray (2), Sally Mann (1), Hans Bellmer (1), Arno Rafael Minkkinen (2)

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Alan Koppel Gallery (here): Constantin Brancusi (1), Harry Shunk (1), Robert Frank (2), Diane Arbus (1), Hiroshi Sugimoto (2 dioramas), Vik Muniz (1), Adam Fuss (1)

Yancey Richardson Gallery (here): Ed Ruscha (10 gas stations), Julius Shulman (1), Sebastião Salgado (1), Esko Mannikko (3), Sharon Core (2 still lifes), Andrew Moore (2), Hellen Van Meene (3), Barbara Kasten (5). The marginal picture at right doesn't do justice to the intricacies of Kasten's recent glass studies; light and shadow play across the layers of glass, creating a network of subtle lines. This particular image is priced at $10500, in an edition of 5.

JGM Galerie (here): Fred Wilson (5), Ion Grigorescu (3)

Marc Selwyn Fine Art (here): Richard Misrach (2)

David Klein Gallery (here): Liz Cohen (5)

Tomorrow: the last of our fair posts (until AIPAD), covering the 2010 ADAA Art Show.

Jan Dibbets, New Horizons @Gladstone

JTF (just the facts): A total of 19 works, each made up of two color photographs mounted together on mat board within a thin graphite outline, framed in brown wood, and hung in the four main rooms of the gallery. The title, date (all from 2007), and artist's signature are also inscribed near the bottom of each image. Each work is unique (not editioned); sizes vary from approximately 31x42 to 56x87. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Jan Dibbets has long been interested in the nature of perception, how perspective alters our view of space, and how the optics of the camera transform what is seen. In his newest works, the straight line of the horizon provides a perfect subject for his meticulous conceptual experiments. In each work, two color photographs (one of a blue seascape with waves, the other of a green and yellow landscape, both against pure light blue skies) are carefully aligned to connect the the two adjacent horizons, creating an unbroken single line that traverses land and water.

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This is the starting point for a wide variety of permutations on this theme, where proportions change, angles tilt, and rectangles and squares move above and below or side to side. In most cases, the spare horizon line runs parallel to the floor, and the geometries and triangulations occur in relation to the constant flat level point; in a few however, the horizon is jarringly slanted, sloping or ascending in an unexpected vertigo-inducing inclination, jolting the viewer out of the soothing simplicity of the construct.

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The most successful works in the show are those that are the most asymmetrical, where the weights of the two parts of the image are exaggeratedly uneven, or perhaps where the limits of the strict compositional device have been tested most. The chunky blocks of uniform sky reminded me of Josef Albers' exercises with squares, and I saw photographic relationships to both John Pfahl's altered landscapes to Hiroshi Sugimoto's seascapes.

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Overall, I found this show to be a satisfying and sophisticated mix of intellectual exploration and meditative repose. The works exhibit a level of craftsmanship and refinement that goes far beyond simple optical trickery and provide a fine example of the subtle power of well-executed conceptual photography.

Collector's POV: While a detailed price list wasn't available, I was told prices for the images in the show generally range between $30000 and $97000. Dibbets' work isn't widely available in the secondary markets for photography; only a few lots have come up for sale in each of the past several years. While prices have ranged between $2000 and $50000, this data may not be entirely representative of his overall output.

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Given the right display environment, I think one of these constructions would hold an entire wall with ease, and would age well without looking dated. The challenge is that work like this doesn't interact particularly well with mainstream vintage or contemporary photography; the visual contrasts are just too great. As such, these works will I think be a better fit for contemporary art collectors interested in optical geometries (and with modern houses) or for photography collectors who have a special interest in conceptual or abstract photography.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Colour Chart @ Tate Liverpool, 2009 (here)
• Review: NY Times, 1987 Guggenheim show (here)

Jan Dibbets, New Horizons

Through March 13th

Gladstone Gallery

515 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011